Now this unique place has been violated and damaged by pot growers, very likely the Mexican drug cartels that have trashed many other American parklands.

The discovery of 22,740 marijuana plants growing in and around Point Reyes National Seashore last week wasn't only the biggest pot seizure ever made in Marin County. It was an environmental mess that will take several months and tens of thousands of dollars to clean up. [...]

Federal officials believe as much as 80 percent of the marijuana on public land is grown by Mexican drug cartels that have turned to places like Point Reyes National Seashore, Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Park and Whiskeytown National Recreation Area in this era of tightened border security; growing the drug here is far easier than smuggling it in. The plants found in Point Reyes last week were valued at around $50 million, Dell'Osso said. [...]

Lt. Scott Anderson of the Marin County Sheriff's Department said the pot farm's similarities to those found in other national parks suggests it was the work of a Mexican cartel that probably employed undocumented immigrants. [Pot farms ravaging park land, San Francisco Chronicle 9/6/06]

"This is massive-scale agriculture that is threatening the very mission of the national parks, which is to preserve the natural environment in perpetuity and provide for safe public recreation," says Bill Tweed, chief naturalist at Sequoia National Park. "[Growers] are killing wildlife, diverting streams, introducing nonnative plants, creating fire and pollution hazards, and bringing the specter of violence. For the moment, we are failing both parts of our mission, and that is tragic."

This destruction is another result of Washington's treasonous failure to enforce the borders. Mexican criminals increasingly destroy our supposedly protected lands with no interference from American law enforcement. We should remember the terrible murder in 2002 of Park Ranger Kris Eggle by a Mexican drug smuggler in Organ Pipe National Monument as a warning: visiting nature preserves is no longer an escape from immigration anarchy.